1751

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In 1751 in London, a second Grand Lodge was founded. It gathered roman catholic masons originating from Ireland which the already existing Grand Lodge of London and Westminster had, up - to that date- refused to accept. The new Grand Lodge introduced itself as more faithful to the Old Charges of the Craft, and, accorddingly took the denomination of Grand Lodge of the Antients. Right from the start, it considered itself as the rival of the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster which it disparagingly nicknamed the Moderns. The ritual of the Abtients will be disclosed on 1760,
It follows that the difference between the Antients’ ritual and the Modern s’ is not as meaningful as the Antients let it long believe. The new Grand Lodge essentially disputef the distance taken by the first Gand Lodge as regards religious principles of which it stoods closer than its opponent. The existence of two rituals entailed the necessity of naming them, one would be termed as modern, the other one as ancient.

In France the Craft seemed not to have been made aware of this new ritual, and it carried on working with those received from the first Grand Lodge of London, now termed as ‘modern’. Doubtless, the ritual practised had enriched itself yet without suffering basic changes. It will thus remain the only one practised in France , if one does not take into account those generated within some Scots Lodges until the beginning of the XIXth century.

The new Grand Lodge of the Antients rapidly grew in England and reached North America where the Moderns’ speculative masonry had been implanted since 1730. A first Lodge of the Antients was founded in 1761 in Charleston, a town in South Carolina. It was to assume a specific place in the history of the development of the Ancient and Accepted Scottis Rite.